To Single Parents Everywhere.

For some of you, this will have been your first festivities as a lone parent and it's undoubtedly tough.

I want you to know that, no matter what, things will be different this time next year.  You'll never, ever have to go through the first time again, your children will be older and a lot of water will have passed under many a bridge by the time another New Year's Eve comes around.

You will be braver, stronger and more at peace than you can ever imagine, even though things might not be perfect.  No-one's got it perfect, even if they look like they have and it's important to remember that.

No matter which way your life goes - and it may not stray too far from where you're presently at - if your kids are happy and healthy then you're doing a great job and have much to be proud of.

This time will go quickly and it will be special, just you and them.  Your friends might be out partying while you're stuck at home 'baby'sitting, but you get used to it and, frankly, you need all the rest you can get, so it's not necessarily a bad thing.

My boys, now 10 1/2 and 6 1/2.

These two munchkins came back from a short stay at their father's yesterday.  Gosh, it was a wrench to let them go, but it was awfully nice not to have to get up early for just a couple of mornings too.  I stayed up late watching The Holiday, The Shawshank Redemption (remember its message about always gotta have hope?) and even Erin Brockovich.  Now there's a feisty and inspiring single mother if ever there were one.

And here's another little message some of us more seasoned ones received kind of from arguably the most famously successful single parent ever -

I don't want to stay a single parent for ever and I'm sure you don't, but it's necessary to have breathing space before moving on.  Kid yourself not that the fall-out from your ex-relationship won't affect a new one.  It needs to be well dead in the water before you can begin again.

And I don't mean any offence to those who have lost partners.  That's a whole other grieving process for which you have my sincere condolences and hearfelt hope for healing.

Lots of lone parents don't want to move on and meet anyone else, even if only for a while.  That's mostly women.  We pick up the pieces of so many emotions for so many people you wouldn't believe it unless you'd experienced it first hand.

Friends and family are affected by any split or divorce and the changes that can occur there can be just as painful as those between partners and the effects on the children.

So cut yourselves some slack.  Enjoy yourselves as far as possible and please stay postive as you see in 2016.

Happy New Year to my single parent friends, new and old and to you, my lovely, mainly happily married readers.  Thank you for your company these last few years.  I hope we can spend many more together and I really look forward to seeing how far we've all come when we're toasting 2017!

Chin Chin and Lots of Love,

Anya XX

New Year, New Blog.

This badge is me, my new blog.

I am going back to my Healing work, after taking a break to have my children, although, it could be said that you never really take a break from this kind of thing.

I have helped friends and family - and their children - from time to time, so kept my hand in, if you'll excuse the pun for hands-on healing work!  With my little one starting school in September, it feels like the right time.

This blog will continue as normal. I hope both will serve as platforms for books that need a shed load of editing.  

I hope you will follow me over there too.  I have never hidden this aspect of my personality / life.  Indeed, I hope it has come through over here. 

'Hope, hope, hope' seems to be fitting as a theme as we hit a New Year, which will come, whether we are ready or not (and, sadly, I am not, as yet!).  I suspect many of us are filled with a premise such as this?    

Tell me what you're hoping for as we approach 2013.  I sincerely wish it brings you everything you wish yourself and more.  You deserve it.  Let it be full of wonderful surprises.

In the meanwhile, thank you for your kindnesses and continued support on this blog. I do hope you like the new one too.

Happy New Year!

     

Anya X

New Year, New Everything?

Our New Year's Day Walk 2011.

This time last year, I was a single mum and happy about it. New Year's Day was spent walking by the seafront with my two gorgeous young boys, me mentally giving thanks for my life.

Not in a sad way, I hadn't been unwell or anything.  Not physically, anyway, but mentally I had been battered, that's for sure.

My husband was a famous International Sportsman and quite a bully, looking back. He played Rugby for Wales, captained the Barbarians and generally thought himself a marvellous bloke.  He'd had me convinced for a few years too.

Then reality slowly, but sure as eggs is eggs, dawned.  That he wasn't at all marvellous.

In fact, he was a pig.

Anyway, my divorce yet to finalise, but well in its throes and his hold on me less and less as the months continued and my recovery underway on January 1st, the powers that be would have been surprised to hear me rattle off a whole list of sincere and big thankyous - for the peaceful existence we were now able to lead, the fun we could have without anyone's temper looming over us, the maintenance money he (then) paid (see here for what happened when he stopped!), our health, our ability to come and go as we pleased, our friends who had been (and remain still) serious lifelines, even just for having each other and time with other family members over Christmas, the glorious weather and the sleeping baby, giving the gift of rare one-on-one stuff with my eldest son, then only five, having seen and heard things he never should have and who needed the space we were encountering, also, to recover.

As our walking continued and the sun smiled down on us, so did the Fates. I didn't ask for much that day. It's kind of a New year ritual of mine to give thanks for the kindnesses, blessings and progress during the previous year and set out 'intentions' for the next. I think it was generally work related - something to do with writing, but it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly what, now. I certainly never mentioned the 'L' or 'B' ('Love' or 'Blogging') words!  They simply did not occur to me.

But in 2011 - unheralded and unexpectedly, the powers that be rewarded me for my patience, perseverance and courage and sent me Love in the form of a lodger, someone whose presence was forced upon us (see above), who the children and I already knew as a friend and for whom resistance would prove completely futile giving rise to my The Landlady is a Tramp post!

So this year, he has changed our lives completely with his presence, is a comfort and joy to me, and I am undoubtedly a more content mum for that, which only benefits the boys, surely?

Robson is now six and a half and 'Baby' Aiden will be three in April. I think I deserve something for me and the Fates have seemingly decreed so!

Blogging has been a wonderful surprise this year as well.  To 'meet' and engage with so many like minded people has been an absolutely divine pleasure - something else for me and I can't quite believe either of things have happened, let alone both!

So whatever 2012 holds for you, whenever you are feeling overwhelmed with 'stuff' and find yourself suffering  or, indeed, suffocating under it all, especially if you are a parent  - and not necessarily a single one - it is entirely possible that 'someone in the great somewhere hears every word.' May there be an incredible surprise or two in store for you too!

What's next, I wonder, for us all?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

OSM X